2,800 new JFK files - but nothing to clear up myriad conspiracy theories

President John F Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline ride in a limousine moments before he was
assassinated, in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Photo: Walt Cisco, APLee Harvey Oswald in police custody after the shooting. Photos: Walt Cisco, AP

The publication of 2,800 classified US government files on the death of President John F Kennedy has unearthed some fascinating details and colourful anecdotes surrounding the assassination.

Some of the more intriguing revelations include a mysterious call made to a British newspaper minutes before the shooting and the FBI warning the Dallas police there were threats against Lee Harvey Oswald the day before he was gunned down by nightclub operator Jack Ruby while in police custody.

Yet the files do not appear to have revealed anything that sheds real light on the enduring mysteries around the murder of the 35th US president. This is unsurprising in light of the fact that President Donald Trump withheld the most sensitive files at the last minute, bowing to pressure from the CIA and FBI.

Mr Trump said he had made the decision to hold back on around 200 files over national security concerns.

"I have no choice," the US president said in a memo, citing "potentially irreversible harm" to national security if he were to allow all records out now.

As well myriad outlandish conspiracy theories around President Kennedy's shooting there are still legitimate questions that have never been fully answered. As reporters and historians continue to pore over the new files, here is what the revelations that have emerged so far tell us about those unanswered questions.

What did the security agencies know about Lee Harvey Oswald?

One of the key questions is how much the FBI and CIA knew about President Kennedy's shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald. The 24-year-old former US Marine was on the radar of both agencies due to his open Communist views and attempts to move to the USSR.

The new files reveal that FBI agents were actively discussing Oswald just weeks before the shooting

An FBI memo, which came from the bureau's New Orleans office in late October 1963, said: "Will maintain contact with Cuban sources for any indication of additional activity on the part of subject organisation which appears to have become inactive since the departure from New Orleans of Lee Harvey Oswald." The organisation referred to was the Pro-Castro "Fair Play for Cuba Committee".

An inside job?

A common strain of conspiracy is that Oswald, who was found to be a lone wolf by various public inquiries, was a fall guy for a shadowy wider conspiracy to kill the president. The new files have not done much to debunk this speculation.

A document from 1975 contains a partial deposition by Richard Helms, a deputy CIA director under Kennedy who later became CIA chief, to the Rockefeller Commission, which was studying unauthorised CIA activities in domestic affairs. Commission lawyers appeared to be probing for information on what foreign leaders might have been the subject of assassination attempts by or on behalf of the CIA.

A lawyer asks Helms: "Is there any information involved with the assassination of President Kennedy which in any way shows that Lee Harvey Oswald was in some way a CIA agent or agent" [sic].

The document ends, short of his answer.

Was Oswald working for a foreign nation?

A key area of interest for historians is Oswald's contacts with enemy nations in the run-up to the shooting. The avowed Marxist had moved to the USSR in 1959, but ultimately failed to obtain citizenship and returned to the US in 1962.

Weeks before the shooting he went to Mexico City and had meetings at the USSR embassy and Cuban consulate. A full picture of what happened in those meetings has never emerged and they became a fertile breeding ground for conspiracies suggesting Cuba or the USSR had a hand in the assassination.

The files have confirmed that Oswald did meet Valeriy Vladimirovich Kostikov, a KGB agent who worked for the KGB's 13th department, which was responsible for assassinations. However, nothing is known about what they discussed and the CIA believes Oswald's meetings at the embassy and consulate were over renewed efforts to gain USSR citizenship.

The files also show the FBI learned USSR officials thought Oswald was a "maniac". A document from the bureau after President Kennedy's death read: "According to our source, Soviet officials claimed Lee Harvey Oswald had no connection whatsoever with the Soviet Union. They described him as a neurotic maniac who was disloyal to his own country and everything else.

"They noted Oswald never belonged to any organisation in the Soviet Union and was never given Soviet citizenship."

Aftermath and 'cover-up'

Conspiracists accused the US government of cover-ups around the shooting and the fact 200 files remain classified will do little to dampen suspicions.

Yet the new files have shown that the security agencies were aware that Oswald's death before he could answer for his crimes was liable to fuel conspiracy.

FBI Director J Edgar Hoover vented his frustration in a formerly secret report found in the files. "There is nothing further on the Oswald case except that he is dead," he said, adding: "The thing I am concerned about ... is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin".